


Paradigm

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blood and Injury, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-19 23:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10650558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: The absolute last thing Noct wants to take with him on this trip is one of the overly formal, dedicated to duty, stupid, smirking,(why is he always smirking?)Kingsglaive.





	Paradigm

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159086774467/oh-sweet-shiva-i-just-found-your-blog-im-so) for an anonymous request.

“Shiva’s tits, Noct, how do you _not_ know who that is? Even _I_ know who that is and he isn’t on my payroll.”

That was precisely why he had no idea who he was. The royal staff was in constant flux. The amount of employee betrayals weeding out the worst of them, Noctis had learned not to get attached. Part of that self-taught lesson included never getting to know their names. Couldn’t hurt him if he had nothing to remember them by.

So, no. Nyx Ulric was as much a stranger to him as the rest of the immaculately stern faces guarding the Citadel. The Kingsglaive especially was so disconnected from him. He wasn’t the King, after all. They weren’t his – and he didn’t really want them, anyway. Like the Crownsguard, they were just Citadel shadows to Noctis… Better-dressed Citadel shadows, but still. Just shadows.

Everyone seemed to recognize the man leaning against the hood of the Regalia except for Noctis. Gladio marched right up and greeted him like an old friend, clapping him on the shoulder and crowing about all the trouble they were going to get up to. Ignis made a sound that was nothing short of an audible cringe once he spotted him, and Prompto got all starry-eyed, a high, quiet gasp escaping the “o” of his lips. When Noctis asked what the hell was wrong with him, he earned a scandalized gasp and a hasty explanation.

Nyx Ulric was a _hero_. Daemon slayer extraordinaire. His feats on the battlefield were often talked about within the royal circle. He was an honorable warrior, a valuable comrade to the King, and had a smile that could break your heart. Noctis looked at it now as the glaive smirked at Ignis, saying something that made his spine stiffen. He waited for something in his chest to crack, but alas. Heart still whole.

“Now, you I don’t believe I’ve ever met,” Nyx said to Prompto as they approached, stretching out a hand to clasp his. “Prompto, right?”

“Nyx Ulric knows my name,” Prompto gasped beneath his breath before enthusiastically shaking his hand. “Yes, sir! That’s me.”

“Good to meet you, kid.”

There was that smirk again. A rogue curve that dimpled his cheeks and made Prompto gape in awe. Noctis rolled his eyes. His friend was ushered away, looking like he was on cloud nine, and left Noctis to face the glaive. Nyx immediately folded into a bow, one arm at his back and the other at his chest.

“I take it you’ve been issued as added security?” Noctis grumbled, failing to keep the derision from his voice.

“That I have, Your Highness,” Nyx replied, rising to stand at parade rest. “Orders direct from the King. I’m to ensure your safe arrival in Altissia.”

Noctis wrinkled his nose, casting a glare back at his father hovering on the steps of the Citadel. He’d been looking forward to this trip, if only to escape his title for a few days on the road. Get away from the city and all the expectations trapped inside of it that kept him awake at night. He’d been looking forward to the freedom, to being with his friends, to pretending that it was just a fun road-trip and not transit to a royal wedding. Tossing a glaive in the back-seat put a wrench in that illusion of normalcy.

Noctis wasn’t looking forward to the formality, to the deference towards his position; he wasn’t looking forward to the “yes, sir”s and the “Your Highness”s, and constant honorifics to remind him that this wasn’t an escape. That he wasn’t normal. Gods, why did he have to come? The four of them were more than capable of taking care of themselves without a fifth member in their company. They were going across Lucis, not daemon-occupied wastelands or up against entire Niflheim armies. Maybe a squadron there, a barricade here, perhaps some late-night wanderings into the occasional daemon. Nothing warranting Kingsglaive artillery.

“Listen,” Noctis said, crossing his arms and trying to make himself more “kingly” than he really felt. Maybe he could get out of taking this guy if he played the princely part right. “I know my father has good intentions, and I’m not trying to insult your glaivy integrity or whatever, but I think your abilities are going to be wasted on this trip. You don’t have to come. I, err… relieve you of your obligation to this task. Be as you were.”

Noctis made some gesture with his hand that he instantly regretted because it was _so stupid_. A random, vaguely dismissive little flutter that he was certain was more comical than commanding. He felt his face flush, mortified by himself, especially when the glaive just stared at him. Blankly. As disinterested as a lounging house-cat.

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” he said. “I don’t take orders from you. Unless the King himself rescinds the order, you’re stuck with me.”

Noctis bit down on a scream. Damn semantics. And if he tried to argue with his father against this, they’d be there until dusk. “Stuck” was an apt term indeed. Stuck in an endless debate with a man who argued for a living; stuck with a stiff-backed soldier to ruin the fun the whole ride.

“Gonna be cramped in the back,” Noctis warned him in a grumble, hurrying past Nyx to the car.

Nyx glanced at Gladio taking the right-hand passenger seat and at Noctis sidling into the middle so that Nyx could claim the left side. The glaive grinned at the arrangement, striking Noctis with a wicked glint in his eye.

“Good. I’ve had worse fillings in my sandwiches.”

—

Sometimes, being Kingsglaive was awfully ungratifying. The brat hadn’t even recognized him, and Nyx had carted his skinny ass between political functions more than a few times. He wasn’t insulted, really. Both his mother and his country had taught Nyx humility long before the oaths of the Kingsglaive had demanded it of him. If anything, he was amused by it. Saw a million opportunities for mischief in this simple lack of recognition.

The _stories_ that Noctis didn’t remember he could tell. A guard of the royals was trained to see all and not be seen. And Nyx had seen _a lot_ from the rearview mirror glances at his charge in the back-seat. Lots of drunk, rambling confessions about inane bullshit that Nyx had struggled not to outright laugh at, instead schooling his voice into a cool chuckle and a neutral agreement.

He surprised his traveling companions the first time he interjected a drunk Noctism into their conversation. They were talking about stopping at the chocobo farm out in Duscae, and Nyx recalled a particularly poetic line from one of the prince’s inebriated outtakes comparing chocobo feathers to sunflowers. Noctis had paused mid-sentence, his brow creased and confused as to why he recognized that line before memory caught up to him and his cheeks turned dark scarlet.

That blush ignited a slew of pestering questions from Prompto that Nyx was more than happy to oblige with answers. Noctis tried to babble over him, cover up the embarrassment of his intoxicated persona, but a gruff “shush” from Gladio silenced him, the big man just as intrigued by Nyx’s tale as his friend. It was hard not to laugh at Noctis’s deflated expression as he curled as far into the corner of his seat as possible to protect himself from the damning recollection.

Nyx grinned throughout the entire re-telling. It wasn’t insubordination. It was just mildly petty vengeance for Noctis thinking he could kick _Nyx Ulric_ to the curb like a common grunt.

_Serves you right, you little brat._

—

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough sleeping, Your Highness?”

Nyx would bark things like that at him in _every_ battle. Hunts, airship drops, daemon traffic, the taunts would just _not stop._ Noctis couldn’t stop to catch his breath for _one second_ before Nyx was appearing from warp beside him, jeering in his ear, before flitting off to the next beast before Noctis could punch out his perfect teeth.

Nyx _decimated_ on the field. He was fast and deadly efficient. Knew exactly where to strike with his daggers to fell a beast with one cut of the mis-matched blades. And he could warp even faster than Noctis could. He was _not_ jealous about that. He definitely _did not_ envy that an arrogant, blustering _grunt_ of the Kingsglaive was better at wielding the royal birthright than royalty himself.

That was _not_ why Noctis picked up his sword and whistled through the air at the biggest fucking garula in the herd and hacked off its tusks like a man deranged.

—

“That’s not gonna work.”

Nyx had been watching the prince wrestle with a bandage from his perch on the stone out-cropping for a few minutes now. He couldn’t help but smile when the sound of his voice startled the kid. Noctis played excellently at putting on a cool front, exuding careful rebellion with his hot rebuttals and lethal warp-strikes. So, it was borderline _adorable_ when Nyx caught him off guard like this, reduced him to a sputtering mess and called up that flustered blush.

Nyx hopped down from his spot and extended a hand to the medical gauze tangled in Noctis’s fingers. “C’mon. Let the doctor have a look at that.”

Noctis shot him a glare and turned away from him, muttering that he “didn’t need his help, I can manage just fine.”

Nyx put his hands up in a placating gesture before crossing them over his chest and standing back to watch. Noctis simmered under the watchful eye, continuing to struggle with wrapping the bandage around his upper arm. Nyx bit his lip to hold back the laughter as Noctis twisted his arms to try and get two ends tight enough to staunch the thin line of blood. At the rate he was going, he would end up mummified by the end of it. Noctis finally conceded to that, huffing in annoyance and pelting the roll of gauze at Nyx.

The knight easily caught it, sighing in exasperation as he was finally allowed to approach the prince. “Careful there, Highness. I sense a vaguely hostile tone to your fastball.”

Noctis growled noncommittally, sitting at the edge of the haven and pointedly not looking at Nyx as he crouched down next to him. Nyx allowed the evasion, if only because it wasn’t his job to pry or to get the kid to like him. He was there to make sure he was safe and that was that. Which entailed patching up flesh-wounds the _right_ way so they didn’t curdle into an infection that would kill him later.

“You know, any of your buddies back there would have been happy to help you with this if you just asked,” Nyx mentioned, jerking his head back to the campfire where the rest were pitching tents for the night.

“They’re busy,” Noctis explained, shortly.

“Not too busy for you.”

“Rather they worry about that than me.”

Nyx glanced up from his careful re-spooling of the tangled bandage. The prince’s face was pensive in the waning light. It had been an ugly fight, walking into the den of a monster they weren’t nearly prepared to deal with. Nyx had watched Noctis’s friends throw themselves in front of potentially fatal blows for the prince more than once that fight. Foolish, sentimental moves in front of blows that Nyx was just fast enough to parry before they landed and got one of them killed. Evidently, Noctis hadn’t missed the sacrificial actions, either.

“They’re always going to worry,” Nyx said, pulling the first aid kit closer, disorganized from Noctis’s frustrated handling of it. “They’re your friends. Worrying comes with the job.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can. I’m sure they know that you can. But this is what being brothers-in-arms is all about. You know that you’re each perfectly capable of taking on everything alone if you need to, but being on a team means that you don’t _have_ to. You trade the responsibility. Maintain balance. Keeps you all alive. Trying to hoard all the responsibility for yourself like this, that’s a sure-fire way to get yourself killed, kid.”

Nyx dampened a cloth with a little bottle of water and gently wiped away the blood spread from the wound by Noctis’s rough handling. The prince quieted as Nyx worked for a while. When he was finished clearing away the excess and was preparing the antiseptic, Nyx paused as Noctis spoke into the gloomy dusk.

“People helping me hasn’t kept them alive in the past,” he said in a small voice, looking out at the Duscaen horizon at something far beyond it. “I’m not a soldier like you. Everybody values my life like it’s better than the rest of theirs. I don’t know how to make them stop.”

Nyx was… shocked by the confession. His impression of the prince up until now had been that of a sheltered, spoiled _brat_. Content to throw his weight around if it meant he could get his way. Didn’t like hearing a word against himself. Delicate Lucian sensibilities impounded by royal privilege. But this, this was new. A selfless insecurity that took Nyx completely by surprise. He could only stare for a moment as he waited for his brain to re-wire this connection. Noctis glanced over at the silence, a vulnerability in his eyes from the words before they darkened with displeasure, assuming the stare as mockery.

“Are you going to help with this or what?” he asked, sharply, reaching for the disinfectant.

His hand wrapped around the bottle and Nyx caught his wrist before he could pull it away. Noctis blinked up at him, almost looking _appalled_ that the knight he’d regarded with such disdain was touching him. Nyx tilted his head to the side, fascinated by the observation that it wasn’t so much disgust that the prince was regarding him with. Rather that it was amazement that someone would touch him so firmly. Touch him as if he wasn’t made of glass.

Hm.

“I might be out of line saying this,” Nyx started, thoughtful. “But I honestly don’t think your friends could give less of a shit that you’re royalty. They’re not putting their lives on the line for you just because you’re the ‘Chosen One’ or whatever bullshit prophesized nonsense it is you Caelums put up with every day. Your life is valuable to them because they care about you. Genuinely give a crap about whether you live or die. You can’t ask them to stop that. All you can do is cherish them the same way that they cherish you. Value them like kings in their own right. Every day. Prove that you’re worth their loyalty by being just as loyal in return.”

Noctis looked at him for a very long time. Turning every word over in his head. Now that Nyx was looking for it, he could see the consideration of each syllable in the shift of his eyes. Electric blue and vibrant with magic so familiar to Nyx it was like every intake of air. While Noctis thought, Nyx distracted himself from staring with the task at hand.

“This’ll sting a little,” he murmured, dabbing the disinfectant-soaked cloth against the scratch.

Noctis winced, but bit back the whimper of pain, forcing himself to stay still and let the medicine do its work. Nyx whispered absent encouragements, filler words he’d adapted for comrades out in the field as he patched them up. He wrapped the wound, even layers of gauge, and secured it tight before leaning back and offering a smile of completion.

“You must think I’m a total loser,” Noctis chuckled, examining the bandage. “Can barely handle a little scratch. You must deal with shit ten times worse than this.”

He was trying to change the subject, Nyx knew. He’d strayed too close within his own heart without intending to and now the prince wanted to detour from it. Nyx accepted the change of course with a smirk.

“Not a lot hurts after the amount of times I’ve been impaled by dumb shit.” Noctis lifted a skeptical brow and Nyx laughed. “I’ll show you the scar sometime, Your Highness.”

Nyx packed away the remainders of the first aid kit, pausing as Noctis made a small sound of dissent. He glanced back at the prince, who was watching him intently. He pursed his lips in thought before speaking.

“I know you don’t take orders from me, but would you fulfill a request? Drop the ‘Highness?’”

 _Well,_ Nyx thought. _Aren’t you full of surprises, little king?_ He smiled and nodded.

“As you wish, Noctis.”

—

“Heads up, Noct!”

Noctis ducked down just as he felt Nyx’s boot in his back, vaulting off of the prince to get a higher vantage in the air before cutting down in a brutal warp to cleave the Bandersnatch’s head in two. The twisted creature keened sideways and collapsed into a puddle of black scourge. They all stood in a disparate circle around the degrading corpse, bruised and bloodied and all panting heavily. When it was entirely disintegrated, its absence proving their victory, Prompto was the first to bounce into the air and cheer.

Sighs of relief circled the lair, pats on the back exchanged, collapsing to the grass in exhaustion. Noctis leaned heavily on his sword pierced in the soil. Felt a rough hand beat against his shoulder. He looked up through the sweaty mat of his bangs to find stormy blue-gray eyes winking down at him.

“Nice work, Noct.”

Might have been the high of adrenaline that hadn’t yet worn off that fluttered in Noctis’s chest at the endearment. Made him smile. Openly. The first time he really felt like he _wanted_ to smile at Nyx Ulric if only to see him smile back.

“Not so bad yourself, hero.”

—

It was gone.

It shouldn’t be gone.

Nyx should have been there to make sure it wasn’t.

News of the fall hit them almost harder than the city itself had been hit. The devastation was just as raw across all five of them as they stood at the overlook, watching their home burn beneath Niflheim airships. Nyx had a phone in his hand in an instant. He called Drautos for a status report. Nothing. He called Crowe and his heart stopped when she didn’t pick up.  She _always_ picked up.

He called Libertus. He told Nyx everything.

As Libertus’s shaking voice hollowed out the heart of Nyx, Noctis got a phone call.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t make a sound.

But Nyx swore that he could hear him screaming.

—

“Nyx, _move_!”

He didn’t realize that he hadn’t until the air next to him cracked like thunder and Noctis warp-crashed into his side, sending them both spraying across the sands of the quay. The jaws of the seadevil snapped at where Nyx’s torso had been. Would have sheared him in two. Nyx heard Gladio’s roar and the crack of the earth as his sword came down to kill the beast that had nearly killed him. Nyx lay there stunned, staring up at the sky and how _empty_ it was before Noctis scrambled into his view.

“What the hell was that?” the prince barked, an unfamiliar rise in his voice as he looked at Nyx, the sunlight over his head darkening his features.

Nyx opened his mouth, but nothing escaped him. He turned his head to the dagger he’d thrown into the sand. Waiting for him to pull through the King’s magic and re-claim it for the killing blow. But his King was dead. And he took his magic with him. Nyx couldn’t warp. He hadn’t moved. And he’d nearly died.

Later, at the haven, he left the others to their own devices, sitting at the edge of the camp and watching the moon rise over the sea as he tended to the kukris. Sliding a whetstone over the tempered surface of one in slow, robotic movements. He hardly had to watch his own hands to do it anymore. It was instinctive by now. Like stretching stiff muscles. The scrape of the stone over the steel muted the sound of Noctis’s footsteps as he approached, alighting next to Nyx. He drew his knees to his chest and folded his arms over the top, following the glaive’s stare out to sea. Out to Altissia.

“Help you with something, Noctis?” Nyx asked on impulse, his services to the royals bleeding out automatic.

Noctis made a small sound of objection and nothing more. It was a lie. The prince never approached him unless he wanted something. So, Nyx waited for it. Same patient movements. Whispers of stone on steel.

“Are you, um… okay?”

Noctis was hesitant. Quiet in the night. His words were delicate, as if he were afraid they would hurt Nyx if he put any more force behind them. Cute, that… _Kind._ He was learning that about the prince the longer they traveled together. He was kind, generous, as humble as a Galahdian, even. He lacked any of the sterilized paradigms of most Insomnians Nyx had encountered in his career. And where Nyx figured he was selfish as any man of noble birth might be, Noctis had proved himself selfless. Always eager to help. Always yearning for approval. Always wanting to feel worthy of the people around him. Part of that kindness was asking after the well-being of others. Of tentatively coming closer in the privacy of the night to offer comfort after the clinical clean-ups as every day ended.

“Don’t worry about me, little king,” Nyx said, wearily.

“You’re kinda contradicting yourself there,” Noctis said, laughing mildly. “Didn’t you tell me not that long ago that worrying was part of being a team?”

Nyx snorted, shaking his head as his own words came back to bite him in the ass. Served him right, he supposed. Trying to act tough, like he _was_ okay, in spite of the vacant hum in his blood and how much it terrified him. Nyx didn’t notice that his movements over the blade had stalled, whetstone hovering motionlessly over the steel. Noctis watched him in the dark, the gentle rippling moonlight off the waves trembling in his eyes. They were honest eyes. Honest enough that Nyx trusted that he could confide in them.

“I’m sorry for today,” he said, softly. “It was a stupid mistake. Won’t happen again. Not used to not having that power after all this time.”

Noctis’s eyes saddened. The loss of the King’s power paled dramatically to the loss of the King himself. Nyx knew the grief of losing family to war all too well. He’d watched the prince’s heart break for his father and knew that he could do nothing but be a shoulder for him to cry on. There was no comfort for that kind of grief. Only time for it to heal. And that was the last thing you wanted to hear when the death was still so fresh.

“Must be hard,” Noctis murmured. “I can’t imagine.”

“Hope you never have to feel it.”

They lapsed into silence, the only sound the lull of ocean waves on the shore below the haven. In the wake of Noctis’s grief, Nyx had disconnected from his own. He had to be the knight that protected the prince. That was his King’s final order. Nyx didn’t know what it meant for him as a glaive now that the king was dead. He didn’t know if his command was forfeit, he didn’t know if he was released from his service by his death, he didn’t know the rules for this.

All he knew was that he’d fought half his life for this family. For their country, _his_ country. He found salvation in the glaive. Forged his honor from the glaive. Did his father’s blade proud by fighting in the glaive. The Kingsglaive had raised him out of the nothing that Niflheim had left him. And now the Kingsglaive was gone. The home that he’d been so desperate to keep safe this time had been destroyed just as effortlessly as the first. The absence of power was constantly reminding him of that. Constantly taunting him that he had failed and he always would fail.

“Stop!”

Suddenly, Noctis’s hands were on his, jerking his palm away from the blade. So lost was he to the tumult of his thoughts that Nyx hadn’t realized he’d been clutching the sharp edge of his blade, cutting into his skin. He blinked back into the present, glancing from side to side in search of something to staunch the bleeding, but Noctis was already pressing a potion to his hand from his pocket. He curled Nyx’s fingers over the bottle and pushed until it broke, the emerald concoction knitting the flesh of his hand back together.

“Another stupid mistake,” Nyx laughed, harshly.

He tried to draw his hand away, but Noctis held fast. His fingers were cool from the sea breeze, ghosting over Nyx’s palm to ensure the potion had done its work. The prince offered him a smile. He’d been doing that a lot lately, Nyx noticed. Soft, half-sweet, half-sly, mostly shy smiles that were contagious to Nyx’s own lips.

“We all make stupid mistakes,” Noctis told him. “But we’re a team, right? We make them together.”

—

The first time he kissed him was in Lestallum.

Noctis had asked for a tour of the little Galahdian market on the east side. Had wanted a pair of authentic eyes to teach him about all the foreign foods and spices and the language of some of the vendors. His friends were tired from a long journey and he was happy to allow them their rest at the hotel. Happier to wander the streets with Nyx alone at night.

It hadn’t surprised either of them, really. They’d walked, talked, joked, ate food that Noctis had never even heard of before that was _perfect_. As delicious as the taste of Nyx’s lips on his when the knight pulled him to his chest in the alley hidden from the main street.

It was so hot in the city. It shouldn’t have made Nyx’s heat that much more alluring, but Noctis _wanted_ it. He wanted _this_ ; the easy, exotic pulse of the midnight city around them, the flavors of smoke in the air, and the taste of this mouth on his, kissing him like he’d never been kissed before. It felt _dangerous_ , all of the rules breaking under the tongue claiming his own. But it felt so _safe_. An alley at night, strangers in a city that wasn’t home, but he felt like it was. Back against the bricks, calloused hands dragging through his hair, making it _wild._

It wasn’t a mistake. He half expected Nyx to pull back, breathless, and tell him that it was. But the only time he broke away was to breathe hotly against his face, stare deep into his eyes, peering so far past the boundaries Noctis had learned to make for the Crown.

“I’m yours, Noct. All of me, everything is for you. You’re my king. My little king.”

After Insomnia, Noctis didn’t think he would ever feel safe again. Ever feel _home_ again. Ever feel like he was worth care like this, devotion like this. He still wasn’t certain that he was. But he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe anything that Nyx said. He pulled him down by the front of his shirt and kissed him hard, moaning against all of it. The feeling of those hands in his hair, the arm falling around his waist, the hips pushing against his, all of it, made him feel like he belonged. Right here. Against this wall, in this alley, in this old, rusting city, with this man who Noctis never thought he would want to save him.

And in the kiss he could taste some of the same from Nyx. That he found purpose in Noctis. That he was the last line of his duty as a glaive and that he was _worth_ protecting. That he was worth living for, worth tending his blades every night for, worth running instead of warping head-long into danger alongside him to keep him safe. That the prince’s reckless grin sparking through a field of MTs was worth defending. That the sweet hum of his moans in Nyx’s mouth was worth coveting.

The road from Insomnia had been long. And the road to Altissia, even longer. And a secret, selfish part of them both wanted the road to never end.


End file.
